How a philosophy professor with a checkered past became the most
influential Catholic layman in George W. Bush's Washington

By JOE FEUERHERDWashington

Editors note: Deal Hudson announced Aug. 18 that he would be
giving up his position with the Republican National Committee in reaction to
questions posed by a liberal Catholic publication. In recent days,
NCR has tried repeatedly to meet with Hudson to get his response to
questions about his departure from Fordham University in 1994 following
allegations of an inappropriate sexual relationship with a freshman female
student. The university said Hudson surrendered his tenure. He also
paid a settlement of $30,000 to terminate a lawsuit that the student brought
against him on the basis of these allegations.

This past March 17, having paid tribute to the saint who drove the
snakes from Ireland, George W. Bush -- first lady to his left, Irish prime
minister to his right -- bounded off the Roosevelt Room podium. As he began to
work the crowd of Irish Americans and Gaelic-wannabes, the president noticed a
familiar face, a fellow Texan, among those assembled at the annual St.
Patricks Day White House gathering.

Immediately after George Bush spoke, recalled former U.S.
ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn, the first person he greeted was Deal
Hudson.

Heady stuff, perhaps, to be the first among the gathered Catholic
glitterati to be singled out by the most powerful man in the world. But by now
Hudson -- publisher of the conservative Catholic monthly Crisis, Bush
political operative, and one-time philosophy professor -- was accustomed to the
treatment.

Hudson, a 54-year-old, thrice-married former Baptist minister, is a
regular White House visitor, a leading Bush campaign Catholic proxy, and a
widely quoted partisan unafraid to use his pen to serve the Bush cause.

In more than two-dozen interviews conducted by NCR over a
four-and-a-half-month period, mostly with former friends and Hudsons
ideological kin, a complicated portrait emerged. Though few of those
interviewed would speak on the record, many of them painted a far less
flattering picture of Hudson than his public moralizing would suggest, and
several raised questions about the allegations that ended his academic
career.

Still, Hudson does not shy away from the political limelight. In May he
told The Washington Post that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry
should be denounced from the pulpit whenever and wherever he campaigns as
a Catholic. Politics and religion fully meshed earlier this year when
Hudson led an effort to oust a low level employee, Ono Ekeh, from his job at
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Secretariat for African-American
Catholics (NCR, April 23) because Ekeh hosted a Catholics for
Kerry Web site.

Look, wrote Hudson in his widely circulated e-mail column,
its one thing for a Catholic to be a pro-life Democrat -- that in
itself is a perfectly legitimate position and consistent with our Catholic
faith. However, its completely unacceptable to follow Ekeh and trade away
our pro-life responsibilities.

Ekeh was forced to resign.

Politics aside, did Hudson have any personal regret that Ekeh, a father
of three young children, had lost his job? Not in the least.

If youre going to play in the sandbox, Hudson told
NCR, then you have to take the consequences of your public
utterances and your public actions. In a recent fundraising letter,
Hudson pledged that Crisis would be taking a close
[emphasis in original] look at some of the bishops who are allowing their local
politicians to get away with the deception of calling
themselves Catholic while voting for abortion rights.

They [the bishops] are scared of him, afraid that hes going
to attack them, says a leading Republican Catholic layman with close ties
to the American hierarchy.

Hudsons rise to influence and his status as public arbiter of
Catholic morals is all the more remarkable given that almost 10 years to the
day of the 2004 St. Patricks Day celebration, the then-Fordham University
philosophy professor stood accused of breaching the bounds of the
professor-student relationship. According to documents obtained by NCR,
Hudson invited a vulnerable freshman undergraduate, Cara Poppas, to join a
group of older students for a pre-Lenten Fat Tuesday night of
partying at a Greenwich Village bar. The night concluded after midnight in
Hudsons Fordham office, where he and the drunken 18-year-old exchanged
sexual favors. The fallout would force his resignation from a tenured position
at the Jesuit school, cost him $30,000, and derail a promising academic
career.

It threatened public disgrace.

But that was not Hudsons fate. Instead, he got another chance --
and made the most of it.

* * *

Power in Washington is directly related to access -- the ability to get
phone calls taken by influential senators, key cabinet officers, top name
journalists, well-wired lobbyists, and, most important, access to that
disembodied entity known as the White House.

Hudsons got A-list access.

On Jan. 8 he was in the East Room for a presidential meeting with
leaders of the National Catholic Educational Association. Later that month, on
the day of the annual antiabortion March for Life, Hudson hosted the kick-off
of the Republican National Committees Catholic Outreach
effort, where his leadership was praised by RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie.

The previous month, Hudson joined William Donohue, president of the
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, former Reagan and Bush I
speechwriter Peggy Noonan, Kathryn Jean Lopez, associate editor of National
Review magazine, and Vincentian Fr. David OConnell, president of The
Catholic University of America, for a Roosevelt Room presidential briefing. On
May 26, Hudson was one of nine conservative religion writers who joined Bush in
the Oval Office for an interview prior to the presidents meeting with
Pope John Paul II.

Thats the Deal Hudson Washington knows. Largely unfamiliar to the
capitals movers and shakers just five years before, he has parlayed his
position at the once-sleepy Crisis into significant influence on both
church and state. Hes respected by some, feared or disliked by many
across the ideological spectrum, but taken seriously by all those who watch
Catholic machinations in the capital.

Today, his columns and e-mail missives can get a staff person at the
U.S. bishops conference removed from a job or force a response from the
conferences general secretary on the bishops commitment to support
the Federal Marriage Amendment; a year ago, his pique over a meeting between
some American bishops and a group of dissidents led leaders of the
U.S. Catholic hierarchy to spend a day with their conservative critics.

He summarized his relationship with the Bush administration in a
November 2003 letter to Crisis magazine supporters: I continue to
lead an informal Catholic advisory group to the White House, as well as
communicate with various White House personnel almost every day regarding
appointments, policy, and events. These efforts have helped to place faithful,
informed Catholics in positions of influence.

While theres an element of publisher self-promotion and puffery in
Hudsons letter, he was telling the truth. Hes probably the
most prominent lay Catholic [recognized] by the Bush administration, says
Flynn.

Says a conservative Catholic activist: The White House has a
Catholic strategy and its name is Deal Hudson.

From his perch at Crisis, Hudson transformed himself into a
classic Washington power broker -- counseling the administration on
appointments and dispensing opinions from his modest row house basement office
in tony Dupont Circle.

It wasnt his first such transformation.

* * *

Deal Wyatt Hudson was born Nov. 30, 1949, in Denver, the only son of
Mildred Emmie Deal (hence the unusual moniker) and Jack Wyatt Hudson. He was
raised in Fort Worth, Texas.

It was, Hudson recalled in his 2004 memoir, an ordinary
middle-class upbringing though, apparently, not without its bumps. In
American Conversion, Hudson, by then a philosophy professor at
Atlantas Mercer University, recalled his first visit to a Catholic
confessional.

We spent much time talking about my parents and my sisters. I had
not realized until then how much baggage I had been carrying around since my
Forth Worth days. I had always been told a burden would be lifted in
confession, but I wasnt prepared for the demons that were released that
day.

Graduated from Fort Worths Arlington Heights High School in the
late 1960s, Hudson entered the University of Texas-Austin. Like all
teenagers entering adult life, recalled Hudson, I thirsted for the
bonds of genuine fellowship to compensate for the kind of disappointment most
of us experience in family life. I found this fellowship in a Southern Baptist
Church.

In American Conversion, Hudson describes the summer of 1971. He
and a group from Atlantas Ridglea West Baptist Church traveled to the
Mexican village of San Benito, where he found himself questioning the goal of
converting the Catholic townspeople. Later that summer, on Aug. 31,
Hudson married Nancy Mae Myers, an event that merited no mention in American
Conversion.

Hudson pursued his master of divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary
in the early 1970s and was licensed to preach, though his doubts
about the Baptist approach to things aesthetic was emerging. Something
seemed wrong, he wrote later, about a Christian outlook that
excluded all the worlds greatest writers and artists from the
conversation about truth.

At Atlantas Emory University, Hudson pursued his PhD and served as
associate minister at Atlantas Druid Hills Baptist Church. He oversaw the
youth ministry.

He ran a fantastic youth group, recalled John Strickland, a
46-year-old member of Druid Hills who, as a teenager, first encountered Hudson.
He had a very dynamic presence and he cared about the kids, said
Strickland. He had his hands full with homework clubs, Sunday
school and Bible study, trips, summer Bible school, and socials. The group met
in the churchs youth center, dubbed the upper room.

The teenagers performed a controversial Christmas play in which
Herods slaughter of the Holy Innocents was depicted. The Catholic
imagination at that time had grown accustomed to seeing biblical stories
embellished by theatrical, often funny and bawdy, treatment, Hudson
wrote. But it was a little much for the more conservative Baptists. The
elders of the church were not used to having that type of thing
presented, agreed Strickland.

Hudson engaged the teenagers in discussions about films and novels --
further raising eyebrows among those Baptists who viewed the Bible as the sole
source of genuine wisdom. Later, as chairman of the Mercer University
Philosophy Department, and at Fordham, his innovative teaching methods and
conservative outlook became a Hudson trademark.

That same dynamism was evident at Emory. At the universitys
prestigious Institute of the Liberal Arts, Hudson made his mark. Former
classmates recall a charismatic presence -- a gifted conversationalist,
first-rate intellect, and a sophisticated charmer. His first marriage dissolved
in Atlanta (Shed just had it with him, recalled one
classmate) and a second marriage was short lived.

Hudson alludes to the time in his 2004 memoir.

About a year before my [1982] conversion I was jolted by the
sudden departure of someone I loved but whose love I had not treated well. The
hurt was compounded by my sense of failure. I spent many months in a daze
hoping to win her back but without any progress. I was to blame and I knew
it.

Meanwhile, his spiritual journey was leading to Catholicism, one of a
particularly orthodox bent. He was increasingly expressing conservative
and right-wing Christian theological positions, recalls a classmate. Yet
Hudson was not only embracing conservative Catholicism, but a belief system
that allowed him to explore faith expressed in art, music, philosophy and, not
least, literature. Evelyn Waugh, Sigrid Undset, Walker Percy, Flannery
OConnor, Georges Bernanos were among the authors he read -- one
after another -- as he grappled with Catholicism.

But of all the novelists I read on my way into the church,
wrote Hudson, none touched me more deeply than Julian Green whose
novels reflect [the] struggle between sexual desire and the desire for
God.

Hudson was awarded a doctorate in 1979 and joined the faculty at
Mercer.

He was a very fine teacher because he had some very
innovative ideas for engaging his ideas and students were interested in
approaching philosophy and theology through topics that had natural interest to
them, Peter Brown, a 33-year veteran of the Mercer University Philosophy
Department told NCR. Hudson, recalled Brown, dared to discuss love and
beauty, areas that professional philosophers quite often dont think
should be dignified in an academic setting.

Hudson was deeply influenced by French Thomist Jacques Maritain.

His distinction, drawing upon Aristotle, between the habits of art
and prudence allowed me to make an argument to my Southern Baptist students
about why they were being asked to read novels such as Flauberts
Madame Bovary and Walker Percys Love in the Ruins in my
classroom, wrote Hudson.

Further, recalls Brown, as chairman of the philosophy department Hudson
took courageous stands for academic integrity. In a battle over reorganizing
the university, Hudson was not afraid to take the lead with his
colleagues or his students and made sure that the voice of liberal
arts was strongly heard, said Brown.

Hudson was received into the Catholic church in February 1982.

On May 29, 1987, Fr. Raymond Peacock, assistant pastor of Atlantas
Christ the King Parish, presided at the wedding of 37-year-old Hudson and
Theresa Ann Carver, an actress with a masters in fine arts from the
University of Alabama. Given his marital track record, Hudson later told
friends, his father demanded the couple sign a prenuptial agreement.

Hudson received annulments -- the first in 1982, the second in 1986 --
for the two marriages, a Crisis spokesperson told NCR.

* * *

Newly married and recently published (Understanding Maritain:
Philosopher and Friend, Mercer, 1988), Hudson joined the Fordham University
philosophy department faculty in 1989. He flourished in the South Bronx ivory
tower where philosophy is not an afterthought or elective, but an essential
element of the Jesuit core curriculum.

Hudsons academic stock was rising. He published two books (The
Future of Thomism, Notre Dame, 1992; Sigrid Undset On Saints and
Sinners, Ignatius, 1994). As a fellow at the Aspen Institute of Humanistic
Studies, he wrote introductions to reprints of Mortimer Adlers The
Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes (Fordham, 1993) and The
Time of Our Lives: The Common Sense of Ethics (Fordham, 1995). He received
tenure and taught part-time at New York University.

Some recall tensions -- Hudson was perhaps the most theologically and
politically conservative member of the moderate-to-liberal dominated
department. Others, however, found him engaging and friendly with a sharp mind
and quick wit and a Southern-style flirtatiousness (he occasionally wore a
Stetson hat to class) that charmed. He and his wife became part of the Fordham
circle -- socializing at their Mount Vernon home or at those of his faculty
colleagues, sharing intimacies and intellectual interests as well as university
gossip. He was popular with students.

And then, in early 1994, it began to fall apart.

In January of that year Cara Poppas signed up for a Hudson philosophy
class.

An 18-year-old freshman from Portland, Maine, Poppas had been in and out
of foster homes from the age of 7. The fourth of nine children, her mother an
alcoholic and her father a troubled and disabled Vietnam veteran, Poppas had a
difficult childhood.

I will not go into all of the negative issues, times, situations,
etc., her high school guidance counselor told Fordham in support of her
application to the university, but rest assured that they were indeed the
most trying of situations where the greater majority of those who find
themselves in these types of situations often stumble and fall and are then
consumed.

Poppas barely survived her first semester in the South Bronx. She had
followed her high school boyfriend to Fordham but they broke up that fall. Her
grades were terrible.

She returned home to Portland for Christmas break and in January
returned to the Bronx, struggling but determined to succeed in the new
year.

Ten years later, the slight and athletic Poppas, during a June 30
interview in her hometown, recalled that she signed up for Hudsons class
because it met the requirements of Fordhams extensive core curriculum.
Initially, she loved the class -- sitting in the front row, actively engaging
in discussions. It was a bright spot at a difficult time.

In early February 1994, class concluded, she approached Hudson with a
question. He suggested, she said, that they go to his office and discuss
it.

I told him everything about me, Poppas recalled in a
four-page document she provided to Fordham administrators at the conclusion of
the semester. He knew I was a ward of the court, without parents,
severely depressed, and even suicidal. I discussed with him why I had lost my
faith in God, in humanity, and in myself. He was extremely attentive and
genuinely concerned.

On Feb. 15, Fat Tuesday, Poppas again visited Hudson at his
office.

He was in high spirits, telling me of how he had searched far and
wide for the best marguerite [sic] in town, Poppas wrote. Hudson would be
meeting a group of NYU students at Tortilla Flats, a popular West Village bar
where, according to a current review, friendly waiters sometimes surprise
you with free shots of tequila.

Would Poppas care to join him?

I was very reluctant, wrote Poppas, who, at age 18, was
still three years shy of the legal drinking age. I knew I would be the
youngest, as well as the newcomer to their frequent gatherings, she
wrote. He promised not to tell the others my age. I decided to
go.

Poppas arrived at approximately 6 p.m.

Five of us sat around the table, Dr. Hudson definitely controlling
the conversation. Dan (young man from the NYU class) was told to be
ready with a lighter to light any ladys cigarette when she wanted to
smoke Jay (another young man from the NYU class) had to make sure all
glasses remained full from the marguerite [sic] pitcher.

The party progressed. More people arrived. The festive crowd played
Bingo -- a Tortilla Flats Tuesday night tradition. Being that our group
consisted of about 10 people, we won most often. Shots of tequila would be
brought in rounds to our winning table. We kept winning, and rounds of shots
kept being brought.

As we grew more and more drunk, stranger and stranger things began
to occur, wrote Poppas. Hudson had his arms around two NYU students, said
Poppas. Dr. Hudson was heavily French kissing both girls, alternating
from one to the other 

One of the NYU students, wrote Poppas, suggested body shots
-- where a girl places the salt on her neck, and the lime in her breasts.
Then, the guy tastes the salt from the neck, takes the shot, and eats the lime
from the girls cleavage. Dr. Hudson performed a body shot with [one of
the NYU students].

The group left the bar around midnight.

Arms locked, drunk and staggering, they dispersed. Hudson and Poppas
took a cab to the Metro North train station, headed, she thought, back to
Fordham.

I was completely in Dr. Hudsons hands, recalled
Poppas. Not only was I unable to stand up, I had no idea as to how to get
home.

In the taxi Dr. Hudson began pulling me close, according to
Poppas.

On the train, he began to feel my breasts outside my sweater and
coat. We missed the Fordham stop (Im not sure whether on purpose or not).
We went to his house, he put me in his car, and he went up to tell his wife he
was bringing a student back to Fordham.

Once in the car, said Poppas, Dr. Hudson told me to lay my head on
his lap, suggesting fellatio when he unzipped his zipper. I did both. I sat up
and said Hold on a second, wait just a minute  He replied
Yes, lets wait till we get to my office. 

At Fordham, He took me into his office, laid his long coat down,
and laid me down on top of it. He began touching me, unzipping my jeans and
pulling up my shirt. I was just glad to be laying down, I could barely feel my
body.

Hudson performed a sexual act on Poppas. He asked her to reciprocate,
which she did. Then he took me to Sesqui, my dorm, recalled
Poppas.

The next day, Poppas continued, Hudson telephoned and asked her to
lunch. He took her to McDonalds in the South Bronx.

He told me not to tell anyone, which I promised to. In my
eyes, I was the one who had done wrong. I was the one who had acted
disgustingly.

Following the short Easter break, Poppas -- ashamed, angry, and confused
-- returned to her usual seat at the front of Hudsons class, having told
no one about the Fat Tuesday incident.

The class, recalled Poppas friend and classmate Colleen Freda, was
reading Walker Percys The Thanatos Syndrome, a sexually explicit
novel. Freda thought it strange, if harmless, that Hudson wanted the students
to read particularly graphic passages aloud in class, she told NCR.
Poppas, however, thought Hudson was sending not-so-subtle messages right at
her.

Poppas stopped attending Hudsons class and, for that matter, most
of her other classes. She spent hours curled up in her bed -- not confiding the
reason for her downward spiral to Freda or other friends, she told NCR.
Hudson, said Poppas, was trying to contact her -- calling on the phone, sending
notes back to the dorm. Poppas hid.

Eventually, Poppas confided the Fat Tuesday episode to a
faculty member who advised her to inform Fordhams administration about
Hudsons conduct.

On April 28, 1994, Poppas met with Jesuit Fr. Joseph McShane, the
college dean (and now the universitys president). McShane appeared
sympathetic and, Poppas recalled, gave every indication that he believed her
story. He told her the university would deal with Hudson once the semester
concluded, said Poppas. Poppas was asked to write a detailed description of
what had transpired between her and Hudson. On May 9, she submitted that
document to the university counsel.

The semester concluded, Poppas met with university president Fr. Joseph
OHare. He asked her, she recalled, how the situation could be rectified.
One of us should have to leave, responded Poppas, and it
shouldnt be me. OHare told her, she recalled, that he would
take care of the situation.

Sexual harassment is not tolerated at Fordham University,
the schools assistant vice president for public affairs, Elizabeth
Schmalz, said in a July 2004 statement provided to NCR. It
subverts the mission of the University and threatens the well-being,
educational experiences and careers of students, faculty and staff. It is
especially disturbing in the context of a teacher-student
relationship.

Continued Schmalz: Fordham followed its policy rigorously in this
case and initiated an investigation into the matter upon receipt of the
students complaint. The professor later surrendered his tenure at
Fordham.

Hudson declined NCRs request to comment on his relationship
with Poppas, saying Aug. 13 through a spokesperson that he left Fordham
to become the publisher and editor of Crisis magazine in Washington, and
expressed to various [Crisis] board members his desire to move his
family south and try a career outside academia.

In response to additional questions from NCR, Hudson, in an Aug.
18 e-mail, said through an aide: The matter about which you have inquired
has been satisfactorily resolved between all parties and we have agreed that no
more may be said about it. That same day, writing on the National
ReviewWeb site Hudson released his response to this story, which
was still being written.

He refused to meet with an NCR reporter to answer questions
personally.

* * *

Michael Novak, an intellectual leader of Catholic neoconservatives,
along with University of Notre Dame professor of medieval studies Ralph
McInerny, launched Catholicism in Crisis in 1982. The publication
provided a voice for conservative critics of the American hierarchy at a time
when the U.S. bishops conference was preparing pastoral letters on war
and the economy.

As the American bishops moved to the left politically, Crisis (as
the name would eventually be shortened to) argued the morality of nuclear
deterrence, supported Ronald Reagans policies in Central America, and
defended U.S.-style capitalism against its critics.

Theologically, Crisis was conservative, backing Pope John Paul II
and critical of those whose interpretations of the Second Vatican Council
differed from those offered by Rome. Over the years, the magazines
contributing editors and publication committee would become a whos who of
conservative Catholicism: papal biographer George Weigel, Nurturing Network
president Mary Cunningham Agee, former drug czar William Bennett, former
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, CEO J. Peter Grace, former
Secretary of State Alexander Haig, former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn,
former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Thomas Melady, Reagan speechwriter Peggy
Noonan, novelist Walker Percy, former Treasury Secretary William Simon, and
political activist Paul Weyrich among them.

Despite this illustrious pedigree, the magazine was near financial ruin
on any number of occasions. For all his theoretical support for capitalism,
Novak was no businessman. Emergency dinners and frantic appeals to
supporters to keep the publication afloat were common. The strains of piecing
together 11 issues a year had grown tiresome, he told friends, as was the
constant need to raise funds to keep the small-circulation magazine afloat.
(Novak declined to comment for this article).

Thats where Hudson entered the picture.

I think Ive got someone who can make it work, Novak
told a leading Catholic lay person in 1994. Hudson became senior editor in
October 1994, editor in March 1995.

* * *

While Hudson was taking over the reigns at Crisis, Cara Poppas
consulted an attorney. Arriving back at Fordham for the fall semester, she
discovered that the bulk of her financial aid had been withdrawn due to poor
academic performance. She was broke.

Poppas blamed her downward academic spiral on the incident with
Hudson.

She filed suit against Fordham (a claim that was eventually dismissed)
and Hudson. Hudson, recalled Poppas, offered $10,000 to settle his case. She
refused.

In early 1996, Hudson offered to settle for $30,000, one-third of which
would go immediately to her attorney, the remainder to her in quarterly
installments. Poppas attorney suggested she take the deal. She
agreed.

* * *

Hudson, meanwhile, moved quickly to transform Crisis. Though the
publications message would remain the largely the same, it took on a more
professional air.

Under the tutelage of National Review publisher Edward A. Capano,
Hudson learned the publishing business. The former philosophy professor had, it
seemed, an untapped entrepreneurial streak.

He secured support from the right-leaning Bradley and Scaife foundations
that would total more than six figures; Dominos Pizza, owned by
conservative Catholic activist Tom Monahan, signed up for 1,000
subscriptions.

Hudson further boosted circulation through improved professional direct
mail solicitations and raised the magazines profile by hosting radio and
television programs on the Eternal World Television Network. The drably
designed monthly became a four-color glossy and established an Internet
presence.

Fundraising was no longer a matter of last-ditch solicitations to stave
off financial disaster, but a series of well planned and well-attended
partnership dinners, golf outings, and cruises.

Hudson hosted an annual Crisis cruise -- subscribers got the
opportunity to hobnob with Catholic celebrities such as Novak, Fr. Frank Pavone
of Priests for Life, the Catholic Leagues Donohue, former baseball
commissioner Bowie Kuhn, political consultant and former Christian coalition
president Ralph Reed, and Franciscan University of Steubenville chancellor Fr.
Michael Scanlan.

The number of paid staff increased from three to 10. Ownership of the
publication was transferred to the Morley Institute, a nonprofit created by
Hudson and named after Lucile Morley, a Hudson great aunt who encouraged his
youthful interest in philosophy. Today, circulation stands at approximately
27,000, up from 6,500 when Hudson took over a decade ago, and the $1.8 million
budget is nearly four times its 1994 counterpart.

Some former staff members recall an exciting and busy time.

I think what impressed me about Deal was his ability to work
quickly and very well, recalled Gwen Purtill, an early Hudson hire who
served as the magazines art director. He could do in a couple of
hours what it would take a lot of people days to do, said Purtill.
We were always trying to pin him to his chair to get an answer out of
him, because he was always on the go.

Through it all, Hudson wrote. His monthly Sed Contra column
led each issue of the magazine.

A sampling:

Catholics who consider themselves moderate are being duped by
the rhetorical evasions, the liberal masquerade, of postmodern
dissidents.

Multiculturalism as it is being practiced promises to be more
exclusionary and more prejudicial than any form of education the West has ever
known.

Golf remains the only major sport to resist the thug element
infiltrating our public life.

The culture, it is clear to see, is still reeling from the bad
taste of 30 years ago.

At the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandals, Hudson took on Bill
Clinton.

Over and over again, we hear on the talk shows that we
shouldnt hold the president to a higher standard. I would
argue quite the opposite. Those who are not willing to bear the burden
of these higher standards should not seek office. After we have stripped
away all idealism from offices that bind our culture together -- president,
father, husband -- what will be left for us to aspire to? Who will want to
sacrifice personal desires for public responsibilities?

Of his daughters reactions to the scandal, Hudson wrote that
she is being imbued with the lie that a persons private conduct
makes no difference to the execution of their public responsibilities.
Its this lie, alive in our culture of death, that has shaped the
character of Bill Clinton and encouraged the moral softness in all of
us.

In 1998, Hudson invested $75,000 of Crisis funds to conduct a
poll on the political attitudes of American Catholics. That investment
transformed him into a significant political player in Washington -- a man who
had the ear of both the president and Karl Rove, Bushs chief political
strategist.

* * *

The essential finding of the survey was that regular Mass attendees were
more likely to vote Republican than those who attended less often or not at
all. Such Catholics, wrote Hudson of the frequent churchgoers, were found
to be moving out of the Democratic Party, where they had long been entrenched,
and instead becoming the swing voters in any given election.

Hudson shopped the poll results around to that years crop of
Republican presidential candidates. Only Rove took an interest. Hudson was
summoned to Austin and briefed then-governor George W. Bush on the
findings.

These Catholics are attracted to the ideas of compassionate
conservatism: work permits for immigrants, protection of the unborn, tuition
vouchers for schoolchildren, Hudson wrote later. They want
government out of Catholic institutions and evidence that the president is
fighting the general moral decay they see in society. The answer is not to
vacillate on these issues in the hopes of attracting greater numbers but to
demonstrate that he will be a champion for life and those policies he already
supports.

Bush and Rove liked both the message and the messenger.

Hudson was named to head the Republican National Committees
Catholic Outreach effort in the 2000 campaign.

* * *

With Crisis on sounder financial footing and George W. Bush and
Karl Rove in the West Wing, Hudson found himself in a position of real
influence. The perception that Hudson controls Catholic access to the White
House is widespread, largely accurate, and the cause of considerable resentment
within conservative Catholic circles.

When the new president wanted to meet with Washington Cardinal Theodore
McCarrick in early 2001, Hudson was asked to carry the invitation. Hudson was a
vocal defender of the presidents Iraq policy, his comments frequently
juxtaposed with Pope John Paul IIs statements of opposition to the war
for reporters seeking the Catholic take on the march to war.

On Thursday mornings, Hudson participates in the White Houses
Catholic call -- where a revolving door of Catholic conservatives
provide telephonic feedback to Tim Goeglein, Roves assistant, and help
the White House strategize on such Catholic issues as Bushs
faith-based initiative, education vouchers, judicial nominations, abortion, gay
marriage, and stem cell research. The one constant of the weekly call, in
addition to Goeglein, is Hudson.

Hudson gets credit for sponsoring a host of presidential appointments --
both substantive and ceremonial. Peter Schaumber, a Bush-appointed member of
the National Labor Relations Board, was backed by Hudson. Hudson was a member
of the U.S. delegation appointed to commemorate Pope John Paul IIs 25th
anniversary and former Crisis development director Ann Corkery was named
a U.S. representative to the United Nations General Assembly.

On the church front, Hudsons public complaints last year that
members of the U.S. bishops had met secretly with a group of
dissidents, led the committee members to agree to a meeting of
Hudson-organized conservative Catholics. That group prodded the bishops to stop
honoring pro-choice Catholics through appointments to church boards and
commissions. Meeting in June 2004 in Denver, the full body of bishops put that
commitment in writing.

There are indications, however, that Hudson is wearing thin with his
ideological brethren.

Some consider him disloyal, pointing to a November 2003 Boston Globe
Magazine article in which Hudson was reportedly critical of Fr. John
McCloskey, an Opus Dei priest popular in conservative circles who until
recently headed the Washington archdioceses Catholic Information Center.
Deal Hudson does not like John McCloskey, wrote the
Globes Charles Pierce. Before saying anything about him, and
nothing thats good, Hudson turns off a reporters tape
recorder, wrote Pierce.

There are Republicans who worry that the Bush administration is taking
political advice from a neophyte. Hudson wouldnt know a Catholic
voter if he ran one over, says a conservative Catholic who doubts the
ability of a Texas-born Protestant to relate to the culture and concerns of
ethnic Catholics in such battleground states as Pennsylvania and Ohio.

These concerns were expressed by the conservative American
Spectator, which questioned why Bush didnt make an appearance at the
well-attended Catholic Prayer Breakfast in April, held just blocks from the
White House.

There continue to be rumblings that the White House and its
Catholic surrogates fail to reach out in even small ways to Roman Catholic
groups, according to the Spectators Washington
Prowler online column.  You look at states like Ohio and
Pennsylvania, says a longtime Catholic activist in Washington, and
you wonder, who is speaking to the Irish Catholic, the Italian Catholic, the
ethnic Catholic? It sure isnt this White House and it sure isnt the
people they have trying to do Catholic outreach. 

On Aug. 18, Hudson quit his post as an adviser to the Republican
National Committee on Catholic issues. While I have no intention of being
dissuaded by personal attacks, I will not allow low-brow tactics to distract
from the critically important issues in this election, he wrote on the
Web site of National Review. He was referring to this article.